


We've watched you do nothing more

by LadyM_17



Series: Whumptober 2020 [28]
Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: American Politics, Grief/Mourning, Gun Violence, M/M, Minor Character Death, Protests, School Shootings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:05:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27260140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyM_17/pseuds/LadyM_17
Summary: Cyrus didn't realize what the noises meant until the loudspeaker came on: Code Red.
Relationships: Buffy Driscoll & Cyrus Goodman & Andi Mack, Buffy Driscoll/Marty, Cyrus Goodman/T. J. Kippen, Jonah Beck & Gus
Series: Whumptober 2020 [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948384
Comments: 3
Kudos: 56
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	We've watched you do nothing more

**Author's Note:**

> I... pay attention to the CWs on this one guys, and take care of yourselves.  
> Does it say something about school shooting frequencies that my today's prompt was about things being normal? Maybe, go vote. 
> 
> Prompt: Day 28: Such wow. Many Normal. Very oops. [Hunting]
> 
> Content Warnings: School Shootings, Gun Violence (off-screen), Minor Character Death, Death Mentions  
> Please let me know if you think anything else should be mentioned and please please please take care of yourselves.

Cyrus heard the popping, but he was in a math test, he was too stressed to think about the popping or the screams that followed- he didn’t fully comprehend what he had heard until the announcement that followed.

“Students, may I have your attention, students, may I have your attention. We are entering a code red situation, I repeat a code red situation. Please follow proper protocol. Teachers, keep your emails open.”

That got Cyrus’s attention. Their math teacher, Ms. Auden stared at the speaker for a moment, before taking a breath. “Alright, we’ve prepared for this. Leave your tests and we’ll start building the barriers. Fast and silent.”

Cyrus didn’t have the strength that Buffy, TJ, or Jonah had but he could turn off the lights and help move desks to the wall next to the door to form a hiding place. He tried to avoid thinking about why he was doing that, just pretend it was another drill, he knew how to handle drills. Once everything was in place, however, it was harder to pretend. Reed grabbed a pair of scissors and sat next to the door. Ms. Auden passed out various textbooks and stationery as projectiles before taking off her heels and stationing herself across from Reed. This was real, whoever came through that door would want to kill them and the only thing stopping them was some tables and stationary.

Everyone had taken out their phones, Ms. Auden didn’t stop them, instead motioning for them to put them on do not disturb mode and turn the brightness all the way down, so nothing could be seen or heard from the outside.

Whenever they’d had drills no one had been allowed to be on their phone and people had always been reading or drawing or something, but now no one was doing that because there was no escaping that this was their reality, and for whoever survived nothing would ever be the same.

Some people were holding themselves together alright, but no one was doing it perfectly. Ms. Auden was constantly shifting her weight, every now and then waving for their attention to remind them of silence- not that they needed it. Reed kept adjusting his grip on the scissors. Andi was crying silently while texting Bowie and Bex, but she hadn’t told them what was happening, wanting, that if this was to be their last interaction, for it to be normal. Jonah was trying to stave off a panic attack, with Buffy and Marty on either side of him, tapping out the rhythm of their breaths.

TJ sat next to Cyrus holding tightly onto the tape dispenser Ms. Auden had passed him with one hand, holding onto Cyrus’s hand with the other. He’d sent his family one mass text _I love you_ and left it there, his parents probably wouldn’t see it until they got off work or heard what had happened, His grandparents would see it soon, but no one would understand until later. Cyrus clutched onto TJ’s hand, he hadn’t texted any of his parental units. If he texted them, that meant he was preparing for the possibility that he died today, and that… he couldn’t. He knew that if he did actually die, perhaps he would regret that decision, but he had the best chance of survival if he didn’t get too swept up in the possibility of death.

TJ squeezed his hand and Cyrus ducked under T.J.’s arm listening to his heartbeat while tracing the light marks of TJ’s jeans. Andi scooted in between Buffy and Cyrus, forming a little circle of The Good Hair Crew and co. She reached towards Buffy and Cyrus, taking both of their hands. Buffy and Marty intertwined hands behind Jonah’s back, still tapping out a rhythm for him as he calmed down, and they waited because that was all they could do, squeezing hands every time they heard gunshots, tears rolling down faces, tensing muscles every time anything that sounded like footsteps reached their ears, wondering if someone was about to try and come in, thinking about the random classmates they knew, if when they emerged from this, those classmates would still be there.

Phones started lighting up, silently thanks to Ms. Aubern’s foresight, parents had been notified. Walker and Libby had texted the group chat, asking if everyone was okay. Andi was the one who responded with the affirmative.

Cyrus stared at the messages from his parental units, all asking if he was okay and it was so much more complicated than that because how was he supposed to be okay while this was happening.

_Cyrus: Physically, yeah. I love you._

He was met with messages repeating the sentiment, assuring him that he would be okay. If their survival wasn’t dependent on their ability to remain silent, Cyrus would’ve laughed. He wasn’t one for dark humor, but there was something about knowing that you might die soon that made you want to try things, and apparently for Cyrus, that was dark humor, finding some twisted sort of amusement that his parentals were assuring him that he would be okay when they all knew that there was no such promise.

Cyrus looked over at TJ, fielding the worried texts from his parents. TJ looked over at him and gave a weak smile.

Cyrus untangled his hand from TJ’s and signed slowly and clearly. _I love you._ It took TJ a few tries to understand, only having met Libby a few times, so never having learned sign to the extent of Cyrus, but he got it. He got it and slowly copied out Cyrus’s signs before kissing him, lightly and quietly but with all the urgency of a last kiss, because for all they knew that’s what it was.

The first time they say I love you and it could very well be their last and they couldn’t say it the way Cyrus had imagined it, because the time they decide to say it is when they don’t know if they’ll ever get another chance.

Andi taps him on the shoulder, she’s holding up her phone. _A photo,_ a final photo. Buffy and Marty intertwine their hands around Jonah, who slings his arms around their shoulders.

T.J. presses a kiss into Cyrus’s forehead.

Andi looks straight into the camera.

All their faces are wet with tears of grief for those they know they’ve lost and fear.

* * *

They waited for four hours before the Code Red was lifted and they were reunited with their parents. By that evening, everyone had ended up at the Mack residence, surrounding the T.V. as more news rolls in: six dead, three in critical condition, sixteen more in the hospital.

They go to the vigils. They cry when three more deaths are announced. Then they grow numb by the time the last two are.

T.J. and Cyrus sit on the swings, watching the country’s reaction. They’re numb to the anger they’ve felt when it was other schools. All they’re left with is an awful feeling that in a week they’ll be watching some other schools go through it and they won’t even be able to find their anger then.

Andi creates obsessively, art for the fallen, hoping that maybe something in her pieces will immortalize them who were taken too soon.

Buffy and Marty walk the hour-long trek to the hospital where the injured rest, daily, just for something to do. They’re not numb to the anger like T.J. and Cyrus, instead, they feel it too much. They walk to get it out until they can force it into something productive.

Jonah writes. He sits with Bowie in the music shop and writes out his feelings and puts it into a song. The song is not angry, it’s heartbreak yelling to be heard.

They go to the funerals, silent mourning masses, angry at the loss of young lives.

T.J. stares at classmates he didn’t know, a few he barely recognizes, and cries because their deaths meant his friends survived, and he doesn’t know how to reconcile that.

Cyrus holds T.J.’s hand, wishing he could feel the anger he felt weeks ago, the anger that drove him to do something, instead of just sitting, watching, feeling helpless.

Andi brings her art, after the services she leaves one on each of the ten graves loaded with flowers. It’s her way of coping, maybe it’ll help someone else too.

Buffy sits beside her Mom during the funerals, she'd managed to come back just for this, and Buffy can’t even find anything to do with her, because her days are taken up by walks with Marty. After the funerals, Marty and her take their walk in funeral clothes, their feet hurt but they don’t care, they go to see if any more funerals will happen in their future.

Marty can’t sit still during the funerals, he wishes he could out of respect, but he can’t. He wants to get up there and yell that this didn’t need to happen, but it wouldn’t do any good, they all know that it didn’t need to happen, and his words wouldn’t reach those who didn’t.

Jonah is the one who grieves at the funeral. The one who lost a friend. He stares at the grave of Gus for a long time afterward, trying to make his brain understand that he’s gone, but he can’t. Eventually, Bowie puts his arm around Jonah and walks him over to the music store. Jonah sits there with a notepad in front of him and writes until he’s crying so hard he can’t see and the page is soaked through.

Other survivors reach out, offer support, ask them what they need. Politicians make promises and offer prayers, even as the Protest is organized. Andi makes posters, Buffy and Marty spread the word, Jonah lines up speakers, and T.J. and Cyrus watch remembering their anger, feeling the spark of it again.

The Protest wasn’t supposed to be big, but it was, everywhere, everyone was pouring their grief and heartbreak and anger into the Protest, on the day, it’s a National Event.

Cyrus and T.J. walk hand in hand, together, holding one of Andi’s signs, the Protest has eased their numbness, their resignation, and helped them find the anger they needed, helped them feel the heartbreak instead of the helpless. Jonah’s song plays in the background. Buffy and Marty led the crowd in a chat along with the chorus:

_Ten dead and prayers don’t end wars._

_But we’ve watched you do nothing more._

_When we lose our friends and family,_

_You can only say we’ll see._

**Author's Note:**

> Take care of yourselves. I might've worked out a (bad, very bad) draft for Jonah's song so I might work on that a little more after whumptober, we'll see.


End file.
